Category: Germany

Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, January 31 – February 3, 2019, http://transmediale.de Day 1 At HKW visitors were welcomed by a pinkish illumination both on the outside and inside of the building. It felt like a butchers shop display. Inside the air smelled a bit funky. The combination of architectural shapes, color and smell…

Frankfurt am Main, June 30 – September 2, 2018, http://www.portikus.de/ The installation of Arim Rungjang, a Thai artist who made his first biennale appearances in the last few years, consisted of one large dark room with video projections on all walls except the entrance. The room was very dark, especially as one was entering straight…

Cologne, April 18 – August 12, 2018, http://www.museum-ludwig.de/ I have come across Haegue Yang’s work previously in some large and prestigious shows like documenta (13), Taipei Biennial 2014 or Art Basel Art Fair. But I did not feel very close to her work. She was the “window blinds” artist for me, the work seemed cold,…

Berlin, Feb 4, 2018, https://transmediale.de This was the concluding panel of transmediale. I was expecting some references to Norbert Wiener and Roy Ascott. Instead panelists stubbornly kept invoking Marshall McLuhan and Friedrich Kittler. Of course not only. I found Eva Majewska’s introduction of the concept of counterpublics at least interesting (a social group delimiting itself…

Berlin, 12:30, Feb 04, 2018, https://transmediale.de A freeform conversation between Heidenreich (art theory lecturer) and O’Dwyer (digital/blockchain researcher). Heidenreich’s main thesis was to abolish money and think about other forms of “matching” supply and demand. Nevertheless in his examples he kept falling back on some systems of ranking and recording that again used numeric form,…

Berlin, 16:30, Feb 3, 2018, https://transmediale.de Eric Snodgrass: Affect is the capacity to be affected, it is what happens before describable and communicate-able “feelings” emerge. Hard Feelings is a title taken from Lorde’s album. A moment when the future collapses upon you. Shaka McGlotten: Manipulation of affect has become a data driven industry today, but…

Berlin, 19:30, Feb 2, 2018, https://transmediale.de Ruth Catlow: Finance is the coordination of large amounts of money and capital. Destruction of indigenous lifestyles, replaced by capitalism. We are all indigenous. Brett Scott (Book: Heretics guide to Finance) worked in finance as an “undercover anthropologist”. Zachary Formwalt: Representation of stock exchange building architecture. Existing stock exchanges,…

Berlin, Feb 2, 2018, https://transmediale.de/ Matteo Pasquinelli moderated the discussion / keynote lecture of Jonathan Beller. I value Beller for his work on the cinematic mode of production: the thesis, that media “consumers” are actually not consumers at all but cognitive workers creating value through the allocation of their quantifiable attention. In his talk, Beller…

Cologne, October 21 – November 25, 2017, http://brauchbarkeit.space Jörg Obergfell spent some time in Japan in a residency in Aomori and he was fascinated by the non-architecture of sheds used to store agricultural equipment. He documented the sheds in photography. Each shed was photographed in the spring and in the winter. There was a medium…

Kassel, Germany, June 10 – September 17, 2017, http://www.documenta14.de At first sight Documenta 14 appeared as very “political”. There were a lot of works seemingly addressing political topics, criticizing capitalism and its inherent relationship. At first sight, that is. After spending some time walking around, this first impression gave way to another reading. I felt…